)
State Bank of India (SBI), India’s largest lender, is eyeing the home loan segment as the fastest growing vertical in credit demand and has kept an ambitious target of 30 per cent growth in the segment this year.
SBI chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters here the state-run lender had the lowest rate of interest on home loans (9.95 per cent for loans less than Rs 3 lakh and 10.10 per cent above Rs 3 lakh), which has helped it drive up the demand for loans.
He added 25 per cent of the new home loans were takeovers from other banks. The bank, according to him, has been doing a brisk business of about Rs 3,000 crore in home loans in a month and expects a mobilisation of Rs 3 lakh crore to Rs 3.5 lakh crore in the current financial year.
Chaudhuri pointed out that the non-performing assets were minimum in this category, close to one per cent.
Talking about the impact of slowdown on businesses like textile, garments, hospitality and relatively small steel mills, he said the bank had tried to stretch their repayment period.
Chaudhuri added the cut of cash reserve ratio from six per cent to four per cent had helped the bank slash the rate of interest.
The bank opened 780 branches in 2012-13 and raised headcount by 21,000.
Since the bank is coming out with its financial results on May 22, he refused to divulge more details on bank’s performance.
